OF THE LIGHT!
You know how you're born with a plan?
I was born knowing that I was to go forward & meet my destiny in the vast world of metaphysics.
Mine has been a spiritual path - all the way.
My first memory is of flying above the pacific shoreline and looking down at both my parents below in the sand.
I was born in southern California to a mentally unstable, artistic mother- and freshly disabled (injured by 5 gunshot wounds while mom was pregnant- & paralzyed from the waist down) father.
I came to this world meeting the energy of deep love amongst tragedy annd 'suffering' somewhat. I'm sure this exposed me early to some heart lesson!!
It was the late 60's and by the time I was three years old, mom had moved us to Buffalo, NY - way across the US!
Because of mother's gypsy ways, I spent a great deal of time with my grandmother and so bonded totally with her as if she were my mother- and ended up having a sister-like feeling toward my mother.
Nevertheless, I lived off and on with mom in Buffalo and in Michigan until ten years old; in several different homes and many different schools.
As a freedom loving latch key kid- I knew the city bus route at age seven.
Especially the buses that ran back and forth between Elmwood Avenue from our 'hole in the wall' to my grandparent's house.
One day while on the bus (it only cost a quarter back then!) an American woman wearing an East Indian sari' approached me with a business card. It had an address on it.
She pointed out the window at a big yellow house and invited me to come there for a visit. She said I'd find good food there.
Food was the ticket for me! I was always hungry in those days. SoI tucked the card away in my pocket and very soon found myself knocking on the door of that big yellow house.
It was a home for worship for Krishna in the years 1973-74, and I made this place and these hippy like people my new surrogate family . . . when I wasn't at school, home or at grandma's house.
They fed me rice w/curry & sweet balls while reading me children's stories about Krishna. I played with their children.
In one game I remember, we'd watch from the driveway for people to walk down the sidewalk in front of the house, and as they approached us we'd suddenly run screaming toward the backyard: "Run! Mortals are coming, MORTALS are coming!!" and we'd hide behind trees.
I was accepted by them and allowed to wash the silverware and platters which held offerings for the dieties -dolls we'd sing, dance and chant to every morning and afternoon.
I helped sew sequins on the clothes for these dieties, and learned how to roll candle wicks from cotten. I'd do this with the grown-ups during study time, while the Bagvadgita was discussed.
For a child this was boring, but I was patient, anticipating the time when study would be over and the floor pillows pushed aside for barefoot dances on the hardwood floor as drums thundered along with the feet; and voices sang out in repetitive song.
I learned how to wear a sari' and chant with my prayer beads: 'Hari Krishna, Hari Krishn, Krishna Krishna, Hari Hari, Hari Ramma, Hari Ramma, Ramma Ramma, Hari Hari"
I learned about the Telsi plant, and about how warm and wonderful the smell of sandlewood incense is.
I even traveled with them all to a large farm in West Virginia to stay overnight for a week with the groups of children there.
I remember all the dancing and drumming, the prayers and vegetarian foods. I remember the blue colored beautiful Krishna artwork- and all the hippy 70's adults who befriended me.
I felt always safe with them and had no bad experiences.
One night while falling asleep I worried over being able to get up at day break to worship because it seemed so very early to do this with no alarm clock.
The woman who slept on the floor pad next to mine taught me to "Ask Krishna" to be my alarm clock, so I did.
I woke up just in time to make the morning dance circle!
My mom's boyfirend had a very religious son who was a Born Again Christian. He worked with me on that level, always telling me Biblical things, and one day before bedtime he asked me to make up my own prayer to God.
I decided to go with "I love my God and I will be good to my God".
Peter said that was a good prayer, so I incorporated this prayer in to my life every night for years and years. Christ was included with my newfound Krisha consciousness.
Meanwhile, mom's youngest sister who still lived at home w/grandma, told me of life between life, and life after life, & of an entity called Seth who was channelled by Jane Roberts.
She told me the most spectacular true family ghost stories!
ALL this between the age of 7-9 years old. It was my soul's plan.
Mom and her boyfriend were in the habit of visiting a local spiritualist church led by psychic mediums.
They rotated channelers three times a week- from nearby Lillydale, which is a real community where psychics & mediums LIVE.
I learned from this church how crossed-over souls can communicate with us through the living.
During this same time period I saw two very clear and active ghosts in my bedroom on early morning at grandma's big victorian home.
((((This is a story I'll later share in detail!))))
Needless to say, when I met anyone new, I'd usually ask them at some point if they believed in ghosts - because this was a truth I KNEW WITH CLEAR FAITH.
If the person answered with disbelief, I'd internally catagorize them as one who still had much to learn! lol.
Peter, the Born Again Christian, told me to beware of the 'devil in sheep's clothing', referring the spriitualist church.
I took his words with a 'grain of salt' as I did all words of everyone. I was born with an innate intuition regarding my personal truth, not easily influenced by others who wanted me to believe certain way.
I felt accepted IN these scenes withoug actually being exclusively OF any of them. I accepted a certain vein of truth which connected them all to each other.
Though very excitable, curious and and an active participant regardning all new exposures, I did not subscribe completely and totally to only ONE truth, you see?
I sang Christian songs at the Spiritualist Church, read the same Bible that Peter did at his church, and prayed over folks who needed healings with the same energy that he channeled through him when he prayed, as far as I could tell.
I went to church with Peter, too.
I woke up internally to KNOW that 'God Energy' in Peter's church was the SAME 'God Energy' in the Krishna temple . . . and in the Spiritualist Church, AND the same energy I sensed while taking walks with Grandpa in the woods.
My grandpa retired his music professorship at Buffalo State and moved to the Bible Belt (Basptist country) of Kentucky - he taught part time at Berea College.
He began to study shape note singers in various Appalachain churches. So I traveled with him to rural areas of many church services out there.
These particular preachers would sweat and jump up and down screaming about 'hell, fire and brimestone'! We were all going to hell ya!
All sinners!
I sat in silent fascination watching the people react to the sermons.
Grandpa recorded the hymnal singing of these mountain people, which sounded beauiful, actually. They got to sing in between the sweaty screaming minister.
In middle school I'd spend hours pouring over the Bible with my best friend Eric, loving how we'd ponder over the philosophy of it all, especially the Book of Revelations.
I asked God one night in prayer (I always fell asleep praying silently - as this my comforting habit)- to show himself to me.
"What do you look like?"
I was shown a brilliant WHITE LIGHT and told to project myself towards and into it during prayer.
I found myself aware of this LIGHT always with me, everywhere.
I KNOW I AM 'OF THE LIGHT'.
LIGHT IS MY SOURCE.
In High School my boyfriend was a Pentacostle Holiness (Christ Only) church member and we attended sermons three times a week. Sometimes revivals if we were lucky lol.
The congregation spoke 'in tongues', washed eachother's feet while weeping,and never cut their hair.
They also always wore dresses and no makeup.
I wore make up to church , had short hair and piercings. I'm no hippocrit, convince me and don't judge me!
I know they considered me the 'Jezabel' who dated their sweet Robbie. I felt no bitterness, only passive amusement. Although I did have a dream one night that as I listened to the preacher screaming in the front- that behind us on counters was a strip bar . . . with naked women dancing :)
I sat in the pews looking back at the dancers and then around me in the seats- were all the 'holy' sinners in Marge Simpson hair doos.
Robbie cried when I was fully immersed in water and baptised with the Holy Spirit. Everyone else spoke in tongues and danced around me in celebration, I was going to heaven after all!
I felt LIGHT in their version of Holy Spirit.
I felt the same stream of 'God Energy' (LIGHT)in Robbie's church as I did everywhere else.
I saw that people withFAITH who prayed with a 'knowing', irregardless of their dogma- created miracles.
PRAYER IS REAL IN ANY PLACE OF WORSHIP IF THERE IS FAITH BEHIND IT!!
All my life I'd had premonition dreams and psychic abilities, but my destiny was to learn about how God/Goddess/LIGHT is everywhere and in everything.
By college I was learning how to astral project and create my own reality out of conscious lucid dreaming.
I found my greatest truth in Shamanistic Journey, and bonded with the Goddess Earth energy.
I claimed my inner witchiness :)
& Yes, I went through the Stephen King phase (back in middle school and high school) when I was very fascinated with horror and fear.
It's very important to know the darker energies!
I learned the Law of Knees (karma); and about how wishing on stars comes true ( be VERY careful what you wish for!).
I collected tarot cards and learned to read them. I've always loved the artwork and the spiritual meanings.
The LIGHT is everywhere . . . in churches where folks speak in tongues and believe that Christ in is God . . . YES! You WILL meet genuine good souls who are of the LIGHT in these places of worship.
LIGHT is around us at campfires where people drum & rattle under the stars. It's in churches and in homes - in places where candles flicker on alters.
LIGHT exists in the heart of practicing Shamans and in rituals of Witches, w/ Priests, nuns and Ministers.
LIGHT is in trees, plants, temples, stars, planets, antss, in children and rocks.
LIGHT IS TRUTH and truth is in everything
IT'S ALL CONNECTED!
Even within the most 'evil darkness' &; that which we may sense as negative 'gloom and doom', there's LIGHT . . . those fragments of which spawn miracles- in our darkest hours- offering hope to the faithful!